The Project Gutenberg eBook, Frank Merriwell in Maine, by Burt L. Standish

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE

The cover image was repaired by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.

Changes to the text are noted at the [end of the book.]

BOOKS FOR YOUNG MEN

MERRIWELL SERIES

Stories of Frank and Dick Merriwell

PRICE FIFTEEN CENTS

Fascinating Stories of Athletics

A half million enthusiastic followers of the Merriwell brothers will attest the unfailing interest and wholesomeness of these adventures of two lads of high ideals, who play fair with themselves, as well as with the rest of the world.

These stories are rich in fun and thrills in all branches of sports and athletics. They are extremely high in moral tone, and cannot fail to be of immense benefit to every boy who reads them.

They have the splendid quality of firing a boy’s ambition to become a good athlete, in order that he may develop into a strong, vigorous right-thinking man.

ALL TITLES ALWAYS IN PRINT

In order that there may be no confusion, we desire to say that the books listed below will be issued during the respective months in New York City and vicinity. They may not reach the readers at a distance promptly, on account of delays in transportation.

Frank Merriwell in Maine
OR,
THE LURE OF ’WAY DOWN EAST

BY

BURT L. STANDISH

Author of the famous Merriwell Stories.

STREET & SMITH CORPORATION

PUBLISHERS

79-89 Seventh Avenue, New York

Copyright, 1898
By STREET & SMITH

Frank Merriwell in Maine

(Printed in the United States of America)

All rights reserved, including that of translation into foreign
languages, including the Scandinavian.

FRANK MERRIWELL IN MAINE.

CHAPTER I.
A LIVELY TIME.

Chu! chu! chu!

The sound came from the exhaust pipe of the little steamer.

“Chew! chew chew!” grunted Bruce Browning, lazily looking up at the escaping steam. “Do you know what that makes me think of?”

“Vot?” asked Hans Dunnerwust, who did not like the glance that Browning gave him, and who felt mentally sore because he had been laughed at for trying to get sauerkraut for breakfast. “Vat vos id you makes id t’ink uf?”

“Of the time you kicked that hornet’s nest, supposing it to be a football.”

“Py shimminy, uf dot feetpall did gick me und gid stung in more as lefendeen hundret blaces, id didn’t chewed me!”

“No, but you chewed the tobacco to put on the stings, and that old exhaust pipe sounds just like Merry, when he kept saying to you, ‘Chew! chew! chew!’—and you chewed like a goat!”

“Und peen so seasick vrom id! Ach! I vish dot dose hornets hat kilt me deat ven I stinged dhem.”

“Speaking of a goat,” remarked Hodge, “I saw one aboard a while ago. It belongs to the little boy that came on the boat with the lady as we were getting our things down to the landing.”

“Shouldn’t think they’d allow a goat on the steamer,” said Diamond, in disgust. “This isn’t a stock boat.”

“No, but it looks like a lumber van,” declared Browning, glancing about the deck, where some new furniture had been stowed, destined for Capen’s, or perhaps Kineo. “I guess it carries about everything that people are willing to pay for.”

“The man who can deliberately grumble on such a morning and amid such surroundings, ‘is fit for treasons, stratagems and spoils,’” declared Merriwell, looking admiringly across the water. “Tell me if any of you ever saw anything finer.”

Frank Merriwell and a party of friends were on the steamer Katahdin, out in the roomy sheet of water known as Moosehead Lake. The Katahdin had left the town of Greenville, near the southern extremity of the lake, some time before. Its ultimate destination was Kineo, the objective point of many tourists, but it was to stop at Capen’s, or Deer Isle, to put ashore some supplies there, together with Frank Merriwell’s party, consisting of Merriwell, Bart Hodge, Bruce Browning, Jack Diamond and Hans Dunnerwust, all friends of his at Yale.

They had left Greenville in a thick fog, which had at length rolled away, giving them a view of surpassing beauty. The water crinkled under the light breeze like a sea of silk. The sky was of so clear a blue that the black smoke from the little funnel trailed across it like a blotch of ink.

All round were the lake’s grassy, timbered shores. In the northwest, the brown precipice of Mount Kineo lifted its hornstone face to a height of eight hundred feet. It was named for an old Indian chief, who lived on its crest for nearly fifty years. The volcanic cone known as Spencer Peaks rose in the east, while beyond them towered the granite top of Katahdin. In the southwest was the rugged head of “Old Squaw,” named for the mother of Chief Kineo, who dwelt on its top, as her son dwelt on the top of the mountain that bears his name.

Diamond glanced back toward Greenville, and sang, rather than said, “Farewell, Greenville!”

This started Frank Merriwell, who got out his guitar, put it in tune, then leaned back on the camp stool with which he had provided himself and sang:

“Farewell, lady!

Farewell, lady!

Farewell, lady!

We’re going to leave you now.”

Jack Diamond, who sang a fine tenor, joined him in the chorus, which in spite of its jolly words, floated over the water in a way that was almost melancholy:

“Merrily we roll along,

Roll along,

Roll along,

Merrily we roll along,

O’er the deep, blue sea!”

“That sentiment would be all right, now, if we were on one of those new-fangled roller boats,” observed Browning, “but it hardly fits the present occasion. I’d suggest that you change that to ‘skim along,’ or ‘steam along’; we’re certainly not rolling. There isn’t enough sea going on this old lake to make a birch canoe roll!”

Diamond did not seem to hear this. There was a faraway look in his eyes that made Merriwell wonder if Jack were not thinking of a girl to whom he had said farewell at Bar Harbor earlier in the summer.

Merriwell started another old song, whose music and words were sad enough to bring tears, and Diamond’s rich tenor took it up with him. It was a song of the friends of long ago, and the last stanza ran:

“Some have gone to lands far distant,

And with strangers make their home;

Some upon the world of waters

All their lives are forced to roam;

Some have gone from earth forever,

Longer here they might not stay.

They have found a fairer region,

Far away, far away!

They have found a fairer region,

Far away, far away!”

“I vish you voult quit dot!” implored Hans, digging some very fat knuckles into some very red eyes. “Dot make me feel like my mutter-in-law lost me. I feel like somet’ing gid behint me und tickle dill I cry.”

He was interrupted by a warning scream, in a woman’s voice.

“Here, Billy! Look out! Look out!” was shouted.

At the same instant there was a blow, a sound of smashing glass, and with a squawk of astonishment and fright, Hans Dunnerwust shot forward and into the air, as if hit by a pile driver. Something had “tickled” him from behind, in a most unexpected way. It was the goat, of which Hodge had spoken.

“Wow! Mutter! Fire! I vos shot! Hellup! Ye-e-e-ow!”

Hans clawed the air with feet and hands in a frenzy of alarm. Then he came down on the goat’s back and began to squawk again:

“Safe me! I vos kilt alretty! Somet’ings vos riting me avay! Hellup! Murter!” as the goat, frightened by Hans’ fall upon his back, made a forward dash.

Hans had been seated on a stool, which was a part of the new furniture stowed on the deck. A mirror leaned against this stool, the mirror being also a part of the furniture.

The goat was supposed to be kept somewhere below, but it had refused to remain there, and in its peregrinations over the vessel had finally wandered to the upper deck.

The boy had followed it, with the intention of taking it below again, but it had scampered by him.

Then it had suddenly become aware of the fact that there was another goat on the steamer. This new goat was in the mirror. The new goat looked pugnacious and put down its head in a belligerent way when the other goat put down its head. This was too much for any right-minded goat to endure, and so Billy made a rush with lowered head and smashed the mirror goat into a thousand pieces.

Fortunately it struck below Hans and merely hoisted him forward and upward. Its impact was like that of a battering-ram, and if it had butted him fairly in the back it would have inflicted serious injuries. Still though not at all hurt, Hans thought himself as good as dead, and bellowed right lustily.

The other members of the party sprang to their feet, quite as startled, while the boy raced across the deck to stop the goat’s mad career, and the boy’s mother screamed in alarm.

Hans’ fat legs flailed the air, as the goat made its rush, then he tumbled off, with a resounding thump.

“Hellup!” he roared. “Something vos kilt py me! I vos smashed indo more as a hundret and sefendeen bieces!”

Seeing he was not injured, his friends began to laugh.

Hans rolled over, gave them a hurt and angry look, then glanced in the direction taken by the goat.

It had faced about and now stood with lowered head awaiting the turn of events. Plainly it was bewildered. The disappearance of the other goat was to it a puzzling mystery.

“Ba-a-aa!”

Its warning note sounded, as Hans lifted himself on his hands and knees. He was facing the goat, in what the goat thought a threatening attitude. Billy’s fighting instincts were aroused and he was ready for any and all comers, whether they were goats or men.

The comical pugilistic attitude of Hans and the goat was too much for Frank Merriwell’s risibilities. He shouted with laughter. And even Bart Hodge and Jack Diamond, who seldom laughed at anything, laughed at this. Bruce Browning dropped limply back on his stool, haw-hawing.

“Yaw!” snorted Hans. “Dot vos very funny, ain’d it? Maype you seen a shoke somevere, don’d id? You peen retty to laugh a-dyin’, ven I vos kilt. Oh! you gone to plazes! I vos——”

The boy dashed by him toward the goat and Hans lifted himself still higher on his hands and knees.

This was too much for the goat.

“Ba-a-aa!”

Whish! Whack!

He made for Hans with lowered head, passing the boy at a bound, and struck a blow that tumbled Hans down on the deck. But the fire and force were taken out of the goat’s rush, for the boy caught him by his short tail as he passed, and gave the tail such a yank that the goat was skewed round and struck Hans’ shoulder only a glancing blow.

Hans went down in a bellowing heap, and the goat squared for another rush.

“Safe me!” Hans yelled. “You peen goin’ let me kill somet’ing, eh? Wow! Id’s coming do kill me again! Hellup! Fire! Murter! Bolice!”

Diamond picked up a rope’s end and gave the goat a whack across the back. It was like whacking a piece of wood. The goat did not budge.

The boy caught it by the tail. Hans lifted himself, and the goat, dragging the boy, made for him again.

This time Hans fell down without being touched.

Diamond leaped after the boy and sought to take the goat by the neck. It flung him off.

“Ba-a-aa!”

Whack!

That was the goat’s reply to Diamond for his attempted interference. The blow fell on Diamond’s legs, knocking them from under him, and the young Virginian promptly measured his length on the deck.

The goat wheeled again and struck at Bruce Browning, who was crawling off his easy stool. It missed Bruce.

The boy had lost his grip on the goat’s tail, after having been yanked about in a neck-breaking manner.

“Ye-e-ow!” screeched Hans, rolling over and over in a wild effort to gain a place of safety. “I pelief dot vos a sdeam inchine run py electricidy! Led id gid avay vrom me qvick! Somepoty blease holt me dill I gids avay vrom id! Hellup! Murter!”

Browning dashed to Diamond’s assistance, and was joined by Merriwell and Bart Hodge. But they could not hold the goat. It squirmed out of their hands like an eel and scampered to the other side of the deck.

Whish! Spat!

A stream of water from the steamer’s hose struck the goat amidships, at this juncture, and fairly bowled it over.

Some of the crew had decided to take a hand, and were now training the hose on the pugnacious creature.

The goat shook itself and lowered its head as if for the purpose of attacking this new foe. But it quickly changed its mind, and raced from the deck, followed by the stream, sending back a defiant “Ba-a-aa!” however, as it disappeared.

Hans climbed slowly and hesitatingly to his feet, ready to drop down at the first warning. He steadied himself on his fat, shaky legs, and looked round the deck with owlish gravity, as if he doubted the goat’s disappearance.

“Are you hurt?” Merriwell sympathetically asked, advancing.

“Vos you hurt!” Hans indignantly squealed. “Dunder und blitzens! I vos kilt more as sefendeen hundret dimes, alretty yet! I vos plack und plue vrom your head to my heels.”

“Diamond caught it, too,” said Browning.

There was a faint smile on his face, which Hans did not let pass unnoticed.

“Dot vos de drouble mit me! You didn’t nopoby gatch id! Uf you hat gatched it, id vouldn’t haf putted me down so like a bile-drifer! Yaw! You vos a smart fellers, ain’d id! You vos a plooming idiot, und dot’s vot’s der madder mit me!”

“Better hunt up the goat and shake hands with it, and tell it you didn’t mean it!” suggested Browning, who couldn’t keep back a smile and some pleasantry when he saw that Hans was really not hurt in the least.

Hans turned away in disgust and sought his stool.

“You don’t know a shoke ven id seen you!” he declared. “Uf you vos murtered pefore my eyes, you voult laugh!”

He turned the stool over and jammed it down on the deck, causing a shower of glass to fall.

Although thoroughly disgusted and angry, Diamond decided not to make himself ridiculous by showing it.

An officer came forward to look at the broken mirror, and a man appeared with a broom to sweep up the glass and throw it overboard.

Merriwell picked up his guitar and began to strum the strings, and soon he and Diamond were again singing, and the laughable, almost disagreeable incident seemed on the way to speedy oblivion.

Hans maintained a glum silence, however, till the steamer reached Capen’s, now and then rubbing some portion of his anatomy as if to make certain it was all there and not violently swelling as a portent of his speedy death.

The lady apologized for the unruliness of the goat, and paid for the damage done to the mirror.

“Here we are,” announced Merriwell, as the steamer rounded to at the boat landing at Capen’s.

The boy came on deck with the goat, leading it by a rope, and Hans dodged behind the Virginian.

“Uf I see dot feller meppe he gid his mat oop again,” he muttered, “und uf I don’t see me he von’t knew me!”

But the goat seemed now to be very peaceably disposed. It obediently followed the boy and was led ashore by him.

The furniture was landed at Capen’s, too; and soon the steamer, with a much lighter burden, was standing off toward the northwest in the direction of Kineo.

One of the first things Merriwell did when they were comfortably located in the hotel was to inquire for a guide. He had written to Capen, explaining his needs, and he found Capen ready to supply them.

Merriwell’s party was in the Moosehead Lake region, in the tourist season for sport.

Not sport with the gun, however, in the ordinary sense, for it was the close season on all large game; but for a few days of the enjoyment of camping out.

Merriwell intended to do his hunting with a camera, he said; and had brought with him a fine, yet small and handy camera, well adapted to his purposes. He did not desire to shoot any large game, but he hoped to be able to snap the camera on something of the kind that would be worth while.

Above all, however, they intended to lounge and loaf and enjoy themselves without unnecessary exertion, for the time was right in the middle of August; and in August it often gets very hot, even along Moosehead Lake, as they well knew.

Capen, when spoken to by Frank about the promised guide, announced that he was ready to furnish the best and most reliable guide in all that country, and sent for the guide at once.

He came, an Old Town Indian, bearing the name of John Caribou.

Merriwell looked him over and nodded his approval.

“I think he’ll do!” he said.

“Do!” said Capen. “You couldn’t find a better, if you should hunt a year!”

The other members of the party were in the room, closely studying the face and figure of the guide. They saw an Indian of more than ordinary height and strength, dressed in very ordinary clothing, with long hair falling to his shoulders. This hair was as black as a raven’s wing, but not blacker than the keen eyes set between the heavy brows and high cheek bones. The face was grave and unreadable, and the man’s attitude one of impassive silence. An observer might have fancied that the conference did not concern the Indian at all.

Capen offered to furnish the guide, two tents, two birch-bark canoes and supplies for the contemplated trip, for a certain sum, which was agreed to without haggling.

Then Frank Merriwell turned to the guide, who had, so far, not said a word.

“When can you go?” Merry asked.

“’Morrow,” said Caribou, with commendable promptness. “If want can go to-day.”

“He’ll be ready long before you are, gentlemen,” declared Capen. “I don’t doubt he could go in fifteen minutes should it be necessary. But I shall have to get an extra canoe which I can’t do before morning, as he knows, and with your permission I’ll send him for it.”

“Why didn’t he get us a white man?” grumbled Diamond when both Capen and John Caribou were gone. “Of course, it’s to his interest to brag about the fellow. I’m not stuck on Indians myself. It’s my opinion that you can’t rely on them; that they’re all right only so long as everything goes all right, and they’re treacherous, ungenerous and ungrateful. If our Indian guide doesn’t make us sorry we ever met him then I miss my guess.”

“I’m sure he’s all right!” asserted Merriwell. “I studied his face closely while we were talking. It’s Indian, to be sure, but there is no treachery in it. I’ll put my opinion against yours that we’ll find John Caribou as faithful, honest and true as any white man.”

Statements are not always convincing, however, and the Virginian remained unchanged in his belief.

Who was right and who was wrong? We shall see.

CHAPTER II.
DIAMOND’S ADVENTURE.

“Caribou is starting out well, at all events,” said Merry, speaking to Bruce Browning.

The guide had built a rousing fire, which had now died down to a bed of coals, on which he was getting supper, handling coffeepot and frying pan with the skill that comes from long experience in the woods.

The light of the fire flung back the encroaching shadows of night and sent a red glare through the woods and across the surrounding stretches of water.

Frank Merriwell’s party was camped on one of the many small islands in Lily Bay, in the southeastern angle of Moosehead Lake, not a great distance from the mainland, which at this point was well wooded.

The tall pines were visible from the island in the daytime, but nothing could be seen now at any great distance beyond the ring of light made by the camp fire.

The wind was stirring in the tops of the low trees of the island and tossing the waves lappingly against the sterns of two birch-bark canoes that were drawn up on the shore and secured to stakes set in the earth.

John Caribou rose from his task, and stood erect in the light of the fire, a long bread knife in his hand. He presented a striking appearance as he stood thus, with the red fire light coloring face and clothing.

“That fellow is all right, even if Diamond thinks he isn’t!” declared Merriwell. “I’m willing to bank on him.”

The hoot of an owl came from across the water. Caribou started at the sound, stood for a moment in a listening attitude, then, observing that he was noticed, he resumed his work of getting supper.

They had reached the island, coming from Capen’s, late in the afternoon. But their two small A tents were already in position, and everything was in readiness for an enjoyable camping time.

Though there were so many tourists at Greenville and Capen’s that Frank and his friends had begun to doubt that they would see any game at all round Moosehead Lake, their present location seemed wild and remote enough to satisfy their most exacting demands.

They had already discovered there were trout in the lake, and big, hungry, gamey ones at that. The odor of some of these, which Caribou was cooking, came appetizingly on the breeze. It was the close season for trout as well as game, but fish wardens seldom trouble campers who catch no more than enough fish for their own use, and Caribou had declared that he would assume all responsibility.

Frank Merriwell got out his guitar again after supper. And what an enjoyable supper it was! Only those who have experienced the delights of camp life in the odorous woods, with the rippling music of water and the song of the wind in the trees, can have any true conception of its pleasures. Cares indeed “fold their tents like the Arabs and as silently steal away.”

The shadows advanced and retreated as the fire flared up or sank down, some wild beast screamed afar off on the mainland, a sleepy bird hidden somewhere in the bushes twittered a sleepy response to the music of the guitar and the words of the song, and the note of the owl heard earlier in the evening came again.

Merriwell played the guitar and he and Diamond sang until a late hour, when all retired, to speedily fall asleep. The night was well advanced, and there was a light mist on the face of the water, when Diamond roused up, pushed aside the canvas flap of the tent and looked out. The moonlight fell faintly.

The young Virginian had a feeling that something or somebody had disturbed him. Unable to shake this off, he crept softly into his clothing and slipped out of the tent. The fire had died down, but some coals still glowed in the bed of ashes.

He was about to put wood on these, when he heard a rustling.

“What was that?” he asked himself, turning quickly.

Then he saw the form of a man stealing away from the vicinity of the camp.

“That’s the guide,” he whispered, his suspicions instantly aroused. “Now, I wonder what he’s up to?”

He saw the form melting into the darkness, and wondered if he should call Merriwell or some member of the party.

“No, I’ll look into this thing myself!” he decided.

He had no weapon save a pocket knife; but, nevertheless, he set out after the gliding form he supposed to be the guide.

“I must be careful, or I’ll miss him!” he thought, stopping when clear of the camp. “He walks like a shadow.”

He heard the bushes rustle, and, guided by the sound, hurried on, and soon came again in sight of the stealthy figure. He was still sure it was the guide, and was much exercised as to why the man should be astir at that hour of the night.

Straight across the island went the man, with Diamond hanging closely behind.

“He’s gone!” Diamond whispered, in astonishment, stopping again in the hope that other sounds would guide him.

When he had listened for full two minutes, he heard a splash like the dipping of a paddle blade in the water. It was at one side and some distance away.

He dashed through the bushes and stood on the shore of the lake. A canoe was vanishing in the mist.

“That rascally guide is up to some dirt, sure as I live!” he muttered. “I’ll just go back and rouse up the boys, and when he returns we’ll demand an explanation!”

With this resolution, he started back across the island, puzzling vainly over the guide’s queer actions.

Scarcely had he left the shore when he tripped and fell.

“Chug!”

“Spt! Spt! Gr-r-r!”

The first sound was made by Diamond dropping into a hole between some roots or rocks; the other sounds revealed to him the unpleasant fact that he had tumbled into some den of wild animals.

“Goodness! what can they be?” he cried, scrambling out with undignified haste and retreating toward the high rock that he saw towering just at hand. “Wildcats, maybe! They sound like cats!”

There was a scratching and rattling of claws and an ugly-looking brute poked up a round, catlike head and stared at him with eyes that shone very unpleasantly in the moonlight.

Jack Diamond was not a person to scare easily, even though he was unarmed.

Another head appeared close by the first; then the two big cats crawled out on the ground, and sat erect like dogs, looking hard at him.

They were right in the path he desired to take.

“If I had a gun, I’d have the hide of one of you for your impudence!” he thought, returning their look with interest. “It would make a pretty rug, too.”

As he studied them, the knowledge came to him that they were the ferocious lynx called by the French Canadians loo-sevee—loup-cervier. There was a silky fringe on the tips of their ears, and they had heavy coats, sharp claws and cruel teeth.

Having decided that they were loup-cerviers, and believing that he had tumbled into their den, where were possibly some young, the Virginian, courageous as he was, lost much of his desire to fight.

He began to retreat, thinking to make a circuit and pass them.

“We’ll have fun with you in the morning!” he muttered. “There’s never any close season against loup-cerviers.”

But the lynxes seemed quite willing that the fun should begin then and there. As he retreated, they advanced, convinced, probably, that he was cowardly.

Thereupon, Diamond backed up against the rock, and picking up a stick, hurled it at them.

“Gr-r-r!”

Instead of frightening them, they came on faster than ever, uttering a sound that was nearer a growl than anything to which Diamond could liken it.

The young Virginian did not like the idea of turning about in an ignominious flight, so he climbed to the first shelf of the rocky ledge, feeling with his hands as he did so in hope of finding something that would be a valuable weapon.

“If I ever leave camp again without a rifle, I hope somebody will kick me!” he growled.

The loup-cerviers came up to the foot of the ledge and sat down like dogs, just as they had done before; and there remained, eying him hungrily, and evidently determined that he should not pass.

“This is decidedly unpleasant,” was his mental comment. “I guess I might as well call for help. If I’m kept here too long, that guide will have a chance to get back and declare that he hasn’t been away from camp a minute.”

Then he lifted his voice.

“Yee-ho-o!” he called, funneling his hands and sending the penetrating sound across the island like the blast of a bugle. “Yee-ho-o! Come over here, you fellows, and bring your guns with you!”

That ringing call roused out the boys at the camp on the other side of the little island.

“What’s the matter?” demanded Browning.

Hans Dunnerwust drew back, shivering, and covered his head with the blanket.

“Oxcoose me!” he begged. “Shust tell dem dot you sawed me. I vos doo sick do gid up, anyhow. I don’d t’ink anypoty lost me, dot I shoult go hoonding vor mine-selluf. Oxcoose me!”

“That sounds like Diamond,” said Merriwell. “Is he gone? Hello! Jack old boy, are you in your tent?”

To this there was, of course, no reply.

“It’s Diamond all right, I guess,” said Hodge, tumbling out. “At any rate, he isn’t in his blanket.”

“Is anyone else missing?” asked Merriwell.

He looked around on the gathering company. John Caribou was there, and had been one of the first to appear.

Merriwell funneled his hands and sent back a resounding “Yee-ho-o!” Then he shouted:

“All right, old man; we’ll be with you in a minute!”

Hans Dunnerwust pulled the blanket down off his face and inquired timidly:

“Is I goin’ do leaf eferypoty? I dink somepoty petter sday py me till he come pack. I don’d pen britty veil!”

“Perhaps some one had better remain at the camp,” said Merriwell, with a wink. “Otherwise the wolves will come and eat up our provisions.”

Hans came out from under the blanket as if he had been suddenly stung by wasps.

“Vollufs!” he gasped. “Meppe dey voult ead der brovisions instit uf me, t’inkin’ I vos dhem! Shimminy Gristmas! Vollufs! Vy didn’t you tolt me dere vos vollufs on dis islant?”

Merriwell did not answer. Having sent back that call to Diamond, he hurried into his clothing. Then he ran from the tents in the direction of the calls, with John Caribou running at his side, and the other members of the party trailing behind.

“Vait!” Hans was bawling. “Vot made me in such a hurry do run avay from you?”

Then he heard the crashing of the bushes, and, thinking the wolves were coming, he picked up a gun and a heavy case of ammunition and hastened out of the tent.

“Vait!” he screeched. “Vait! Vait!”

He was in his white nightshirt, and his head and feet were bare. With the gun in his right hand and the heavy ammunition case tucked under his left arm, he was as comical a figure as moonlight ever revealed, as he wallowed and panted after his comrades.

“This way!” shouted Diamond, hearing their movements.

The big cats began to grow uneasy, for they, too, heard that rush of footsteps across the island, though the sound was still some distance away. One of them got up and walked to the foot of the ledge, as if it had half a notion to climb up and try conclusions with Diamond at close quarters. But it merely stretched up to its full height against the rock and drew its claws rasping down the face of the rock as if to sharpen them.

“Not a pleasant sound,” was Diamond’s grim thought.

The loup-cervier retreated, after having gone through this suggestive performance, and again sat bolt upright beside its mate and stared at the prisoner with shiny bright eyes.

But they became more and more uneasy, as the sounds of hurrying feet came nearer and nearer, and at last rose from their sitting posture.

Once more Diamond funneled his hands.

“Don’t come too fast,” he cautioned. “There are some wildcats here that I want you to shoot. You’ll scare them away.”

“All that scare for that!” laughed Merriwell, dropping into a walk. “I thought he was in some deadly peril.”

“I’m just wanting a wildcat,” said Hodge, pushing forward his gun to hold it in readiness. “No close season on wildcats, is there, Merry?”

“Think not,” Merriwell answered. “You go on that side with Browning and Caribou, and I will go on this side. Look out how you shoot. Don’t bring down one of us, instead of a wildcat.”

“Vait! Vait!” came faintly to their ears from Hans, who was struggling through the bushes, having fallen far behind in spite of his frantic haste. “Vai-t-t!”

As a seeming answer came the report of Merriwell’s gun.

One of the cats, scared by the noise of the approaching force, sprang away from the foot of the rock and scampered toward the cover of the trees. Merriwell saw it as it ran and fired.

Instantly there was an ear-splitting howl.

The other cat leaped in the other direction and was shot at by Bart Hodge.

The young Virginian descended from the ledge in anything but a pleasant mood.

“They’re loup-cerviers, and they had me treed nicely,” he said; “but you got one of them, for I heard it kicking in the bushes after it let out that squall. I tumbled into their nest a while ago and that seemed to make them more than ordinarily pugnacious. I came——”

He stopped and stared. At Merriwell’s side he saw John Caribou, and he had been about to announce that he had followed Caribou and seen him row out into the lake. Clearly he had been mistaken.

“What?” asked Merriwell.

“Better see if I’m right about that cat,” suggested Diamond, his brain given a sudden and unpleasant whirl.

He was not in error about the cat, whatever he had been about the guide. The biggest of the loup-cerviers was found dead in the leaves, where it had fallen at the crack of Merriwell’s rifle.

While they dragged it out and talked about it, the young Virginian gave himself up to some serious thinking. If that was not John Caribou he had followed—and he saw now that it could not have been—who was it?

The question was easier asked than answered.

However, he decided to speak only to Merriwell about it for the present, and began to frame some sort of a story that should satisfactorily explain to the others why he had left the camp.

Hans Dunnerwust came flying into their midst, dropping his gun and the case of ammunition.

“Vollufs!” he gurgled. “One py my site peen shoost now! I snapped his teeth ad me. Didn’d you see him?”

Hans’ wolf was the loup-cervier, which had run close by him as it scampered away.

“Only a wildcat,” Merriwell explained, as he turned to Diamond.

“A viltgat!” screamed Hans. “Dot vos vorser yit. Say, I peen doo sick do sday on dis islant any lonker. Vollufs mid wiltgats! Dunder und blitzens! Dis vos an awvul blace!”

CHAPTER III.
HANS GOES FISHING.

The next morning the ledge of rock was visited where Diamond had his adventure with the big cats, and he and Merriwell searched along the shore for some marks of the canoe in which the nocturnal visitor had made off. No young loup-cerviers were found, though a hole was discovered between some roots near the base of the rock, which the cats had no doubt used.

“I don’t understand it,” the young Virginian admitted, referring to the man he had seen sneak away from the camp. “The only thing I can imagine is that it must have been some one who hoped to steal something.”

“Yes,” said Merriwell, thinking of the suspicions Diamond had harbored against the guide. “Do you suppose Caribou could give us any ideas on the subject, if we should tell him about it?”

“Don’t tell him,” advised Diamond, who still clung to the opinion that John Caribou was not “square.”

The coming of daylight drove away the terrors that had haunted Hans Dunnerwust during the night. He became bold, boastful, almost loquacious.

When the sun was an hour high and its rays had searched out and sent every black shadow scurrying away, Hans took a pole and line and some angle worms and went out to a rocky point on the lake, declaring his intention of catching some trout for dinner. He might have had better luck if he had pushed off the shore in one of the canoes and gone fly fishing: but no one wanted to go with him just then, and he was afraid to trust himself alone in a canoe, lest he might upset. This was a very wholesome fear, and saved Merriwell much anxiety concerning the safety of the Dutch lad.

“Yaw!” grunted Hans, after he had found a comfortable seat and had thrown his baited hook into the water. “Now ve vill haf some veeshes. I don’d peen vrightened py no veeshes. Uf I oben my moud and swaller do dot pait mit der hook on id, den der veeshes run mit der line and blay me!”

He had slipped a cork on the line. The cork gave a downward bob and disappeared for a moment in the water.

But before Hans could jerk, it came to the surface; where it lay, without further movement.

“Dose veeshes vos skeered py me, I subbose!” soliloquized Hans, eying the cork and ready to jerk the moment it appeared ready to dip under again.

Finally he pulled out the hook and, to his delight and surprise, found that the bait was gone.

“Hunkry like vollufs!” he said; then glanced nervously around, as if he feared the very thought of wolves might conjure up the dreaded creatures. “Vell, I vill feed mineselluf again mit anodder vorm.”

Baiting the hook he tossed it again.

Hardly was the cork on the wave when it went under. Instantly Hans gave so terrific a jerk that the hook went flying over his head and lodged in the low boughs of a cedar.

“A troudt!” gurgled Hans, in a perfect spasm of delight. “Vot I tolt you, eh? A trout gid me der very virst jerk! Who vos id say dose veesh coultn’t gadch me?”

A little horned pout, or catfish, about three inches long, was dangling at the end of the line. It had swallowed the hook almost down to its tail.